THE POPE'S VISIT: THE MESSAGE

THE POPE'S VISIT: THE MESSAGE;Pope Backs Freedom and Nation-Building, but Leaves Some Things Unsaid

By PETER STEINFELS

Published: October 6, 1995

The worldwide striving for freedom and the rights of peoples to maintain their distinct identities, the two chief topics of Pope John Paul II's address to the United Nations yesterday, are the stuff of fervent hopes and, sometimes, savage massacres around the globe.

But the Pontiff's 50th anniversary present to the United Nations was a hopeful address deliberately couched in the broadest philosophical terms, avoiding specific comment on the political, social and economic conflicts worldwide that inspired it.

It was a speech that avoided taking sides, at times as significant for what was not said as for what was. The Pope dealt with the questions of self-determination for ethnic and cultural groups and their demands for states of their own, but there was no direct discussion of Bosnia, the Israelis or the Palestinians.

Instead, while the Pope strongly defended the right of distinct groups to maintain their own identities and cultures, he held open the possibility that this right did not necessarily require separate nation-states but could be accommodated within larger nations. In short, there were words from the Pope that could be used by those who support an independent Palestinian nation or by those who support a Palestinian confederation without full sovereignty, words for those who support a unified Bosnia or for those who support a balkanized grouping of states.

The speech's real thrust was to offer principles that might guide the world body in the 50 years to come. "The United Nations organization needs to rise more and more above the cold status of an administrative institution and to become a moral center where all the nations of the world feel at home," he said.

Pope John Paul II's speech yesterday did not possess the emotional power of Pope Paul VI's speech to the United Nations 30 years ago, with its ringing call: "No more war. War never again!" But the present Pontiff showed the respect for cultural diversity at the heart of his message by delivering parts of his address in English, French, Russian and Spanish.

The intricacy of the Pope's argument at the United Nations contrasted with the directness of his remarks about immigration at the Giants Stadium Mass, and his appeal for the United States to be "a hospitable society, a welcoming culture."

A concern for displaced people, refugees and migrants has preoccupied the Pope and the Roman Catholic church worldwide, and in his words on immigration, he did not hesitate to speak up against a strong current in American opinion.

He also left no doubt about his support for the United Nations. Since its founding, the papacy has been one of its firmest supporters, and nothing yesterday suggested a change.

In another example of speaking through silence, his address there contained no mention of the Vatican's unhappiness with the drafts of statements prepared for the 1994 international conference on population in Cairo and the World Conference on Women in Beijing last month. At both conferences the Vatican feared that the principles of universal human rights were threatened by cultural relativism.

Nonetheless, a trace of the battles at the two conferences could be detected in the Pope's opening defense of universal human rights. That the whole world has been seized by a "quest for freedom," the Pope argued, attests that some human rights are universal, rooted in a common human nature and reflecting a fundamental "moral logic built into human life."

This moral law and the rights linked to it provide the "grammar," the Pope said, that allows conversation across continents and cultures about the planet's future.

If the Pope's statements about freedom were familiar, his treatment of the "rights of nations" was a departure, although one deeply rooted in his own experience as a Pole.

The Pope's analysis was a complement to his United Nations address of 16 years ago, which looked at international relations through the prism of states' duties to protect the individual rights affirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That speech was in large part aimed at countries under Communist rule.

Yesterday, he noted that there was no similar international agreement on the rights of nations, and he implied that the subject belonged on the United Nations agenda.

The Pope's use of the term "nation" had a special flavor. He was not equating a nation with a self-governing state, but was thinking of ethnic, linguistic and cultural groups that shared a common identity.

Such ethnic and cultural consciousness, he wrote, "must not be underestimated or regarded as a simple leftover of the past."

He balanced such comments by saying that this "fundamental spiritual 'sovereignty' " does not necessarily require political sovereignty. He called for exploration of other arrangements provided that they guarantee each people's right to its own language and culture and education of the young.

The Pope's talk presented no test for determining when a distinct culture could only be protected by a nation-state or when other arrangements might do.

"This was not a tactical speech," said the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, former adviser to the American Catholic bishops on international affairs and now a professor at Harvard University. "It was a conceptual speech that sets a framework for people to think about over a period of time."

While the Pope called for a strong United Nations world role in adjudicating the rights of nations, he did not address when military intervention could be justified, a question at the center of the organization's recent activities and one that might well have found a place in the address. It is a question on which the Pope himself has appeared to waver, never abandoning the traditional Catholic teaching on the right to self-defense, but reluctant to invoke it.